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5 Aug 2014

Te Tai Tokerau tantrum

The wee spat developing in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate is an unfortunate sideshow that Labour's head office has justifiably tried to put a lid on. Not only has their candidate, Kelvin Davis, shown his incapacity to run a positive campaign, he seems determined to gain media attention by continuing with his unjustifiable and undignified smears against his rivals, particularly the sitting MP Hone Harawira.

Such a thoroughly negative campaign by Davis isn’t gaining him any friends in the electorate and it certainly won’t bring Te Tai Tokerau within his grasp of winning either. If becoming an MP who has won his electorate is his goal, this is clearly not the way to go about it.

Back in 2011, Hone Harawira won the seat by 17% of the vote over Kelvin Davis and on current polling looks set to increase that large majority. In fact there's no way Davis can conceivably win the seat, and in light of this reality it appears that he's simply having a tantrum!

Of course the mainstream media is reporting on every little development in order to show that the left wing is divided. They want the public to believe that the Internet/Mana party alliance cannot possibly work constructively with the Labour party to help form a coalition government. Unfortunately their ulterior motives have now resulted in reporting on the issue that is completely wrong!

Hone Harawira is Internet Mana's candidate in the seat. On current polling Mr Davis is not guaranteed a return to Parliament on Labour's list if Mr Harawira wins the seat.

You would expect that a news agency that wants to be taken seriously would learn how to use a bloody calculator properly. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case, with 3 News seemingly not able to read Labour's list or aware that the Labour party itself is currently polling at 30%.

Even at their lowest poll rating, Kelvin Davis at 18 on the party’s list will become an MP again. Here's the Electoral Commission’s MMP seat calculator, which clearly shows that Labour would have 38 MPs in parliament with 30% of the vote. That easily means Kelvin Davis will be a part of any coalition government the left wing is able to form post election.

If Davis expects people to vote positive he should learn how to campaign positive as well.